Guardian by Sweeney Joyce;

Author:Sweeney, Joyce;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

Chapter 8

When I get home, Stephanie is pitching a fit. Happily, she isn’t pitching it at me.

“Yes! You can go look it up right now and I’ll hold!” She paces up and down the room, her red nails clawed around the portable phone.

I see that all three of my sisters have gathered just outside her pacing range and are staring at her anxiously, which makes me realize it isn’t some co-worker or client she’s mad at—it’s something to do with us.

She lectures us while she’s on hold. “This is the way the world works, guys. If you take things lying down, people will screw you for all you’re worth. You have to speak up, ask questions, get in somebody’s face, and make damn sure—What?” she says to the receiver. “Never received it? That’s not possible. That’s just not possible.”

Drew looks like she’s either going to cry or pee. Jessie is staring straight at me, her eyes like blue torches. Then I get it. Stephanie is talking to the magazine that sponsored the Kindergarten Queens contest. I sweep the room for more info and see the current issue of the magazine splayed in the corner of the room, where Steph must have hurled it when she saw Drew didn’t win. I wonder if I can sneak past everyone and get to my room.

“You check again! Don’t check your computer! You go through all the entry forms by hand and you call me back! I’ll go to the papers and tell them you rigged the goddamn thing! You probably threw away all the entries from the white kids to make sure a minority kid would win. I know how you people operate.”

I’m getting a headache. Stephanie is listening now. She gets a pen. “Okay, I want that person’s name and your name and your supervisor’s name. The publisher’s name I’ll get from your masthead. And if I don’t hear from you, don’t worry, you will definitely hear from me!” She punches the disconnect and stops pacing so fast her hair whirls into her face. She looks at us, trying to figure out how to work off the rest of her rage. Drew starts to cry quietly.

“Stephanie,” says Jessie. “There’s something I think you should know.”

Even then, I don’t get it. I just look at her, wondering why she would want to draw fire.

Stephanie’s mad at her hair now, raking it out of her face with both hands. “What?!”

“That contest never did get the entry form. Hunter took it out of the mailbox and tore it up.”

“Yay, Hunter!” Drew jumps up and down and claps.

Stephanie, like me, is paralyzed at this unexpected turn of events. “Hunter? Jessie, what are you talking about?”

I can hardly hear them over the din of my mind screaming, Why, Jessie, why? Would she really sell me out because she’s jealous of some girl? Deliberately betray me like this? Break four years of trust between us and hand me over to this madwoman?

“I’m worried about him,” Jessie rushes on. “He wasn’t in school today.

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